GILLETTE (WNE) — Less than two weeks removed from announcing the winners of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize, the Integrated Test Center is at the center of another large, high-profile carbon capture project.
Gov. Mark Gordon announced Friday afternoon that the ITC, attached to the Dry Fork Station coal-fired power plant about 10 miles north of Gillette, will host one of two large U.S. Department of Energy CO2 capture research projects.
The DOE has awarded $99 million to a pair of projects to continue their research into Phase III of the federal Demonstration of Large-Scale Pilot Carbon Capture Technologies program.
One of those Phase III projects is from a group called Membrane Technology and Research (MTR), which was awarded $51.7 million. Along with other non-federal financial backing, the project will bring more than $64 million in research money to Wyoming and Campbell County, Gordon said in a press release announcing the funding awards.
“This is exactly the type of research that was envisioned when the ITC was developed and Wyoming will continue to support these efforts,” Gordon said in a news release.
CarbonBuilt, a research team from the University of California-Los Angeles, was one of two teams of scientists that tested their CO2 capture and reuse technologies at the ITC last summer. On April 19, CarbonBuilt was announced as one of two XPrize winners, with each getting a $7.5 million award.
